Heartbeat
by Free-Yourself-x
Summary: Charlie Weasley understands his twin brothers better than most. He watches Fred and George as they grow into adults, knowing that they not only hold each other up - they hold up the foundation of their family. DH spoilers! One-Shot.


A/N: Just a quick little something I whipped up for a Christmas special. Nothing great, but enjoy!

UPDATE: I've made some edits. Thanks for all the critiques and wonderful reviews this far (excluding the hilarious troll).

**Heartbeat  
Revised: December 25, 2010  
**

* * *

I used to think that Mum, Dad, Bill, Percy and I made the perfect family. I was six when I thought that. Bill was eight, Percy was two... and everything just seemed... how it was supposed to be. It wasn't long before that all changed.

When mum first told us she was pregnant, we were caught a little off guard—perhaps even a bit hurt with the thought that she wanted to change our family. It wasn't until Dad explained to us that there would be two babies—twins—that things really didn't go over well. Bill complained that he already had two younger brothers and didn't need four, and Percy whined about no longer being the youngest. I just sat there, stone-faced, trying not to show them how hurt I was. I liked things the way they were, but I wanted Mum and Dad to be happy.

I reckon things change, though.

On April Fools Day of 1978, my brothers were born. Like the rest of the family, they had flaming red hair and faces full of freckles. Mum felt it necessary to name them after her brothers, our uncles, who had been killed just recently. Thus, the first baby was named Fred Fabian Weasley, and his twin, just two minutes after him, became George Gideon Weasley. Each baby, the doctors at St. Mungos had explained, had an extra heartbeat. Thankfully, however, the beat was in the upper chambers of their hearts, and therefore, harmless. Dad liked to joke that they had given each other a separation present—a little piece of their hearts.

At first, it was impossible to tell them apart. Merlin, Mum hadn't told us they would be identical! They had the same choppy red hair, freckles in all the same spots, short noses, and the same almond-shaped eyes that were a marvelous auburn colour. They had to wear their hospital bands for nearly six months before Mum realized that George had a birthmark on his shoulder where Fred did not.

As for me, being their brother, I was able to pick out some subtle personality differences that most people—perhaps even close friends of the family—could not see.

When Fred smiled, it was a simple and amused half-smile. When George smiled, it lit up a room. Mum always said that he carried a certain joyful atmosphere with him. Together, Dad said, their smiles and laughter were some of the best gifts a person could ask for.

Fred was closer to Bill than he was to Percy or I. He followed him around whenever he could, wanting to do whatever Bill was doing, and he got jealous whenever someone else would hang out with him. Whenever our eldest brother would give Percy and I a hard time about something, Fred would pick up on it, enhancing his already developing sarcasm. To Fred, Bill was the cool big brother. I suppose I always sort of hated that.

But while Bill had Fred, I had George. Whenever the family was just relaxing—hanging around the Burrow and doing nothing important—he would always find me if Fred wasn't there. He was a constantly curious child, fascinated by my passion for dragons. George loved to ask questions, and I loved to answer them for him; we were incredibly close, and at the time, if I could have taken him to Hogwarts with me, I would have.

Once they were old enough, the family began to notice that their voices, however similar, had just the slightest difference in pitch. George had a bit of a deeper voice than Fred did. Of course, whenever they unknowingly switched places, we never really paid attention to that, too concerned that we had offended them by calling them the wrong name.

Both twins loved to get a laugh, though George was more of a follower. Compared to Fred, he was shyer, sweeter and gentler, whereas Fred was a loud, outgoing and outspoken free soul. To Mum, George was always the sensitive twin; I had to agree with that. The twins were in touch with each others emotions, and whatever one was feeling, the other seemed to catch a sense of it as well. George, however, seemed very vulnerable to Fred's pain. He worried himself sick whenever Fred would keep something from him. Once, when a rare argument between them had caused George to start crying, Percy scoffed and said he should get over it, which only made George cry harder. As it turned out, Fred was just mad because Dad had put the cookie jar on top of the fridge... where it couldn't be reached.

Fred was very protective of George, always standing just in front of him as though it were some sort of defense. He seemed to recognize that George needed him, and Fred, though he wouldn't admit it, needed him just as badly. As a child, I'd never seen Fred as upset as he was the day George got the flu, and while our sickly brother had to stay in their room, _he_ had to sleep with me. The twins were five at the time; I was eleven.

Fred was particularly quiet that night. I tried my hardest to cheer him up, taking him downstairs to the living room where we drank hot cocoa, relaxed by the fire, and played games.

"He'll be okay, Freddie. Don't fret," I reassured him. "It's the flu season."

Fred sniffled, his light hazel eyes not yet meeting mine. "I don't like it when he's sick."

I wrapped my arm over his little shoulders, smiling. "Georgie doesn't like it when you're sick either, mate. Trust me."

He nodded, taking a sip of his cocoa and leaning back.

"Perce says it's my fault..."

That surprised me. Why would Percy say something like that?

"It's not your fault!" I told him, my face somber. "Percy doesn't know what he's saying!"

Fred shook his head, tearing up. "He says it's because we were out late the other night, and it was cold, and Georgie had the sniffles already... and-and-and...!"

"Shhh... Fred..." I whispered, pulling him into a tight hug, musing over how I would definitely be having a talk with Percy later. "Listen to me. Percy's wrong. Chances are, George was going to get sick one way or another. You said it yourself, mate, he already wasn't feeling well! I promise. None of this is your fault. Don't you worry on it one minute."

There was silence.

"Okay?"

"Okay, Charlie..."

Moments later, Dad passed through the living room, holding George, who was wrapped in his little bathrobe, close to him. Our brother had his arms wrapped around Dad's neck, his chin resting over his shoulder exhaustively, and his hair wet from the bath that he had no doubt just had. He glanced over at us, face pale and eyes half-open, and then, he found Fred. Their auburn eyes met for just a moment, and there was this smile between them—so quick, a fleeting glimpse—that was gone in a flash. When Dad brought George back to bed, and Fred turned back to me, my little brother had a new air about him.

"You were right, Charlie..." he said, grinning a grin that had been missing since George first got sick. "Georgie's gonna be okay."

There it was—that unspoken, but clear, communication between the two of them. None of us would ever be able to fully understand it. And Fred, filled with thankfulness and a new confidence, was not afraid to confront Percy about what he said. As I recall, he said something like, "You're a liar! I hope _you_ get sick you stupid liar face!"

While our mum chastised him for his cruelty, I crossed my arms, leaning against the wall, and said to Percy:

"He got you there, liar face."

And George did get better. Once the flu passed, he and Fred went back to cooking up unique and complicated pranks to use on the family (it was clear to everyone why they had been born on April Fool's Day). From that point on, that protectiveness that Fred possessed must have doubled.

Fred and George (a collective name that, much to George's disliking, was never George and Fred) were like two sides of the same coin; they completed each other.

Fred plotted; George modified the plan to work.

Fred started a sentence; George finished it.

Fred got ruthless with pranks and revenge; George was always there to knock it down a notch.

Fred always smiled when he lied; George got them out of trouble.

One took care of the other.

The twins were not complete without one another. They depended on each other for survival. everything they did, they did because they were together.

After I graduated from Hogwarts, I traveled up to Romania to work with dragons. It killed me to leave my family, but I knew it had to be done. From then, the twins grew up so shockingly fast that I barely had time to blink it. Soon enough, Fred and George were sixteen, "human beaters" on the quidditch team (pride swelled in my heart), and they were even managers of their own joke shop, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.

On their seventeenth birthday, I sent them a present. I framed an old picture of Fred holding George up as George reached for the wand on top of Percy's old cabinet. The picture replayed after he grabbed the wand, got down, and handed it to his twin. I had one of my fellow dragon tamers help me with the banner—a silver, cursive font across the black frame: A SUCCESSFUL TEAM BEATS WITH ONE HEART. They appreciated it. I knew they would. No pair of twins were quite like Fred and George. They prided themselves on the fact that they used to be one, not two, and the way they looked at it, they still were—each a half of the same person. They shared a brain, a voice, but most importantly, a heartbeat.

By the time the twins were twenty, that heartbeat, metaphorically speaking, began to stutter.

I came home from Romania for Bill's wedding, knowing the dark times that were lying ahead, but not expecting to see what I did. I walked into the kitchen that morning to find George leaning against the counter, sipping tea. The part that threw me off were the bandages wrapped around his head... and the toothbrush sticking out of the side. A little disturbed, I coughed to catch his attention, but he didn't seem to notice me.

"Georgie," I called. Still no response. "GEORGE!"

My brother cocked an eyebrow before turning to face me slowly.

"Finally here, are you?" he said with a grin. "About time!"

I gawked at him. It wasn't like George to not pay attention.

"It's good to see you, George, but I have to ask about the, erm... toothbrush?"

He stared back at me with a raised eyebrow, but after a moment, he snapped his fingers, and turned his toothbrush-filled ear toward me. Carefully, he pulled it out, and through the opening of the bandages, I realized, with a great shock, that were _was_ no ear.

"Mum always said I was the angelic one. Geddit? 'Cause I'm holey."

I forced myself to meet his eyes, not his ear-less ear. "How can you make jokes at a time like this?" I hollered, my voice breaking. "George! What happened to you?"

George shrugged with a carelessness that I could not believe. He had always used humour to lighten dark moods, but this... this was wrong. Merlin, his _ear_ was missing! There was nothing funny about it!

"Severus Snape felt it was appropriate to slice my ear off, the slimy git."

He paused, clearly not paying much attention to my shock.

"Aunt Muriel just told me my ears were lopsided too, believe it or not."

I didn't know what to say, how to comfort him (or if he even wanted me to)... so I did the one thing I could even fathom in the moment; I hugged him.

George patted my back, telling me it was all fine and dandy, but I couldn't bring myself to believe him. He made a joke about it every other second, not quite giving me the full details, which made it seem as though he were concealing something. If George wasn't going to give me the entire story, I concluded, he was the wrong twin to ask about it.

"I knew it happened as soon as it did. I walked in, and sure enough, he was half-conscious on the couch, covered from head to toe in his own blood. He didn't happen to tell you about the horrible joke he made at the time, did he?"

I frowned. "He did. Saintlike, was it?" Fred nodded. "Disturbing... though I suppose it's pretty good for a delirious George."

He grimaced. "No excuses, Charlie."

"Tell me, Fred..." I said, pushing past the jokes... "is he really _that_ all right with this? I feel like he's... holding something back."

My brother sighed, lowering his eyes.

"No, he's not _entirely_ all right with this," he breathed. "They can't grow the ear back because there was internal damage. He's... he's half-deaf."

My eyes widened. I _knew _something had been wrong. It wasn't that George hadn't been paying attention when I first spoke to him... he just didn't—_couldn't_—hear me. My heart ached for him. This was the sort of thing that happened to an old man... not my little brother, who was barely twenty!

Fred went on. "And what bothers him the most is that we aren't... perfectly identical anymore."

I bit my lip as Fred turned away.

"That bothers you too, doesn't it?"

Fred nodded.

"For the life of me, I can't tell you why..." he whispered. I stood from George's bed and went over to sit beside him. Fred leaned on me as though he were unquestionably exhausted. "I guess... I guess, for both of us, it means something. It's ominous... as though something or someone is going to separate us. We've never been different before, Charlie, and now..."

I didn't want to hear the words he was telling me. There was no way that any of my siblings could die in this approaching war—not alone, not together, not at all.

"You were always different, Fred."

* * *

Months later, it turned out that Fred was right. Merlin, I wished and wished that he wouldn't be.

In the same way that Fred knew when George was hurt, George knew that something was wrong with Fred. I had watched him go weak at the knees for seemingly no reason, and though I knew something must have happened, I never would have imagined it to be this—not in a lifetime.

I stared at the horrible, gut-wrenching sight before me, silent tears falling... dripping... _plop_. My hand rubbed Percy's back almost mechanically—my little brother sobbing heavily, grief and guilt weighing down on him like a ten-ton weight. Our youngest brother, Ron, was choking on his tears and fighting for his breath while Mum, in her own horrible misery, ruffled his hair, kissing him on the forehead and telling him it would all be over soon. My heart throbbed hard against my chest. I could barely breathe, my body riddled with a horrible pain, and I couldn't stop blaming myself.

_I could have stopped this..._

And Bill was holding George, and George was choking on sobs uncontrollably. His body, curled up tight in a ball against our brother's chest, shook violently. He looked so broken—so small and helpless. He struggled to get away from Bill, but his life and energy had been stripped from him. How could this happen?

"Shhh... It's okay, Georgie..." Bill was whispering in a cracked voice. "It's okay. I'm here now... I'm here. Shhh... Bill's got you. I've got you, little brother. You're all right... everything's gonna be all right."

Nothing would ever be all right again.

George's heart had taken a fatal hit.

Fred was dead.

* * *

For what seemed like an eternity, the Weasleys were broken.

I stayed home, unable to return to Romania when my family was in this condition—when _I_ was in this condition. My little brother was dead. There would never be the right words to describe the unconditional pain and suffering it caused. I could never stand to be around the entire family because it _wasn't _the entire family. I couldn't even look at George when he was around; most of the time, he locked himself in his room. Fred was gone. All that was left was the faint echo of his laughter, haunting us day after day. This sort of rare pain was difficult to describe, and there wasn't a day that went by that it didn't hurt. I couldn't shake the guilt; he was my little brother, and I should have been there to protect him.

The funeral damn-near killed me. It was nothing but tears and solemn goodbyes, and the very sight of Fred's coffin was enough to undo me. George couldn't make it all the way through, whispering how wrong it was—the fact that his twin brother was dead and the funeral so somber. Dad had to take him inside before he collapsed. I wanted so badly to comfort him, but I didn't know how to anymore. It wasn't until a few days later that I finally tried. I didn't realize that this was the sort of thing that needed to fix itself.

With Bill and Dad's help, Mum cooked breakfast. There was an unbearable silence in the kitchen. Ron looked around at all of us, his face very painfully expressing that his entire life had been turned upside down—all of ours had. (He had been through so much during this war, I realized that day.) Ginny and Percy were still sleeping.

"I'm sorry..." Ron whispered, shaking his head. "I just can't eat right now. I'll be ill."

"You'll be ill if you don't, Ronald," Mum insisted, her voice stronger than it had been in the past two weeks. (Had it really been that long?) "You've hardly been eating enough. You either, George."

I flinched at the sound of his name.

My head cranked painstakingly towards him. I could barely even stand to see his face—the mirror image of our dead brother, filled with so much grief, so much anger, and so much unbelievable loneliness. His light hazel eyes screamed just how lost he was. I could hardly fathom the pain he must have been in—the confusion and wonder on what do now that he was alone.

George did not seem fazed by our mother's words. It could have been that he just didn't hear her, or that he was simply lost in his thoughts... but I was certain it was because he didn't want to hear her. He was widely known for his selective hearing these days. I hated it with a passion.

"Actually, Mum..." I said, trying to catch George's eyes... "George isn't eating at all."

My brother didn't look at me, but he did raise his eyebrows.

There was no denying that George had lost an unhealthy amount of weight in just those past two weeks; Ron was looking thinner too. George's eyes were sunken in just slightly, and he just looked... sick. His face was ghost-white, the rims of his eyes were red, and around the red were dark circles— which made it clear that he hadn't been sleeping either. I shivered at the very thought; I had heard him cry himself to sleep on several occasions.

_Oh, Fred, why? _I found myself asking. _Why would you let this happen to him? To you? Why didn't you move when you had the chance? It was so preventable..._

"Please, Georgie..." Dad managed, setting pancakes in the middle of the table. "It kills us to see you like this—just a bite or two."

George bowed his head, his hair falling over his lonely auburn eyes.

"I can't..."

His voice felt so childish—innocent and scared—in that instance. Again, I yearned to reach over and hug him as though we were children again; it wasn't that simple.

"Why not, sweetheart?" whispered Mum, stepping around the chairs to come and rub George's back. "Please tell me what's bothering you."

George threw his hands to his face, his body starting to shake. He did that whenever he was on the verge of tears—covered it up.

"Don't... don't..."

"George, honey, you can't keep this all locked up."

"Stop... just stop..."

I watched Ron rest his head against the table, completely drained. By that point, I had had enough of the agony, and I couldn't stand to see my family—George especially—suffer like this anymore.

"George!" I snapped, standing up and slamming my hands against the table. "I'm not letting this go on any longer! If you don't take care of yourself, you're going to die!"

The back door swung open and shut. Hermione had arrived.

Perfect timing.

George started _bawling_. I was so taken aback that I actually stepped away. His body shook uncontrollably, wracked with sobs. He threw his hands to his face and cried like I had never seen him cry before. His tears triggered mine, and soon, Ron and Bill were crying too. Dad kept a stern face, but the tears dragged off of his cheeks so clearly that it _hurt _to watch.

George caught his breath. "I _want_ to die, Charlie, don't you _get it_?" he cried.

Mum buried her face in her hands, while Dad snapped, "George! Don't say—"

"—It's true, dammit!" he screamed, pulling his hands away and glaring at all of us. "Just admit it! There's not one second that goes by where you don't look at my face and see my brother instead!"

"That's not true!" Mum protested through her heavy sobs.

"He was our brother too, George!" I argued, my voice hitting a dangerously high pitch. Heat rushed to my face. I had never fought with George before—not like this—and it felt all wrong. He had always been able to confide in me, and in this past year, that had vanished from our relationship. I would have thought that would change; he and I had both lost something so painfully close to us.

George snapped his head towards me, eyes narrowed furiously. "He wasn't your twin! He wasn't your best friend, your partner in crime, your constant right-hand companion! We were _soul mates_! We were intertwined! You said it yourself, Charlie!" He reached into his back pocket and threw a sickle at me. I let it hit my chest, flinching at the sting in his words. "We're two sides of the same coin! I can't exist alone! It doesn't work that way! But no matter what, you will _never_ understand!"

Bill slammed a pan down on the table. "If you can't exist, George, then why are you _still_ here?"

George did not take Bill's words in the context that our eldest brother had intended.

"I don't know!" he cried, slamming fists against the table. "If I did, I wouldn't be like this!" He bowed his head, tears falling onto the wood._ Plop. Plop._ "You know me! I've never been miserable, and I've never been moody and temperamental! This is me without Fred! This is what happens when you lose half of yourself! I can't be me without him! All I've ever known is Fred and George, the Weasley twins! I'm not supposed to be George Weasley, the twinless twin!"

Mum fell into Dad's chest. Ron threw his hands to his face. Bill and I were frozen.

Without warning, George's fist slammed down—not on the table—but on a glass. It broke, helpless to a beater's swing, and glass shards were soon scattered everywhere. I grasped Ron's shoulder, pulling him away from the broken glass, but my eyes were locked on George.

"None of you will ever understand, so stop trying to make everything better! It will never ever be okay again!"

George left without another word, his right hand bleeding profusely. He stormed past Ginny and Percy, who had just appeared next to Hermione at the bottom of the steps.

I thought I knew my brother. I thought George would always be the gentle one, however mischievous; the one who was always able to calm the situation and keep it together. I was wrong. After what I had just witnessed, I was so very wrong. George was in _agony_. When he was young, I could fix his broken bones, I could reduce his fever, I could tuck him into bed... but now...

I _couldn't_ fix this.

Ginny began to cry, and Percy sat down, ignoring the shattered glass. Hermione stood a few steps behind Ron. Mum, looking as miserable as ever, started serving breakfast again. I couldn't stand to meet her gaze. Again, that horrible silence returned to the Burrow.

Suddenly, Ron stood, mouthing the words "I can't," and started toward the stairs. Hermione grabbed his hand as he passed her.

It was at that moment that I came to a very painful conclusion.

Fred and George didn't just hold each other up; their bond held up the entire house.

* * *

Three nights later, I was headed up to bed when I heard a muffled crying coming from the twins'—_George's_—room. After all the things George had screamed at me, I still couldn't bear to hear him suffer. Even if it would only be a temporary improvement, I knew I had to do something.

I creaked the door open. Emptiness stared back at me.

Two beds.

It wasn't right. This room wasn't meant for one person.

I stepped in, pausing for a moment to gaze at my late brother's side of the room. There were clothes and items thrown astray, just as Fred had left them—his bed unmade. It seemed as though George hadn't touched a single thing. I could almost feel a shield between the two sides of the room—a pull from where George slept.

He whimpered.

I turned back to George, the tip of my wand illuminated. He was curled up tight, underneath one single sheet. His face was contorted with pain—eyes shut too tight. Tear tracks streaked his thin cheeks.

"Fred..."

My heart sunk to the pit of my stomach. My body suddenly felt too heavy, and as I stumbled over to my brother's bedside, I could barely lift my legs. Grief really did have that ability to weigh down on a person, and what I felt for George's loss—for my own loss—was a heavy, heavy burden.

I slipped in behind George and wrapped my arms around him. He was cold, and I could feel his ribcage. I ran my other hand through his hair.

"Don't leave..." George whispered, pressing closer to me. "Fred... don't..."

I reached up to wipe the tears from his face.

"He won't, Georgie... he's always here."

My brother curled up tighter, body shivering. "It's not the same."

"No..." I admitted, trying to keep my voice from breaking. "No, it's not the same, but he's still here with you. He's your twin, George. You're forever connected, no matter what. You have his heart."

"His heart..." he repeated subconsciously.

"Yes. The ones we love are never gone, George. Never."

Reaching behind me, I grabbed the comforter that had slipped off his bed in the night and pulled it over the both of us.

I couldn't leave him—not like this.

* * *

When I awoke that morning, George was already up. He was sitting cross-legged on Fred's bed, holding something black in his hands. His eyes were half-open, and he wore a very sullen expression, but what I felt was different from the misery he had been expressing lately. I'd take what I could get. I slipped out of bed, my body aching, and sauntered over to sit down next to George. He didn't move, but I was able to see what was in his hands. What I saw was two mischievous twins-one holding the other up to reach something that did not belong to them. The silver banner stared back at me: _A SUCCESSFUL TEAM BEATS WITH ONE HEART._

George ran his fingers over Fred's face almost absentmindedly.

"I miss him," was all he said.

"I miss him too," I responded, throwing an arm over my brother's shoulders. Together, we stared at the photo, captivated by the moment forever captured in the black frame. "He loved you, you know..." I mumbled, and George, for the first time in days, turned to look at me meaningfully. "You were everything to Fred; he wanted to protect you more than anyone could ever fathom."

George forced a small smile, leaning his head against mine.

"It does help..." he whispered... "knowing you were right, Charlie."

I glanced down at George, who widened his smile and patted the left side of his chest. Almost instantly, the tears were falling again, but they couldn't break his smile—it was sincere.

"His heart. I can feel it."

I couldn't help but grin, so thankful to see that smile. I felt the tears crawl down my own cheeks. "You always could," I said. "He's your extra beat."

George grinned back, the tears falling quicker. "My heart murmur."

"That's what I like to hear..." I chuckled, wiping at the tears, but to no prevail... "A typical George joke. Remember what Mum and Dad used to say? Your smile, your humour... they're gifts, Georgie. With them, you are so strong, and even more so... because you have Fred. You've always had him, and you always will have him. That's why you're still here, George... because Fred is too."

George nodded knowingly, his glazed auburn eyes finding the photo again.

I paused, watching him.

"So can you hear the angels sing?"

In the back of my head, an eerily familiar voice hissed, _'No excuses, Charlie.'_

George glanced back at me, and much to my joy, his childish curiosity came rushing back. It was as though we were young again, and I would be reading him some dragon story, and he would ask me... _Charlie... why do you love dragons so much?_ And I would laugh and say: _Because they complete me, Georgie. Like Freddie completes you._

"Fred has your ear up there in heaven, remember?"

And then George would understand, just like he understood now.

"Of course I can hear them."

He grinned.

I grinned.

On April Fools Day of 1978, my brothers were born. Like the rest of the family, they had flaming red hair and faces full of freckles. The first baby was named Fred Fabian Weasley, and his twin, just two minutes after him, became George Gideon Weasley.

They had their similarities.

They had their differences.

But in the end, all that mattered was that they had each other... forever and always...

My brothers, the foundation of my perfect family.


End file.
